The man could hardly drag one step behind the other. He could hardly
drag by the bridle the tottering horse, of which the same held good.
His brain was giddy and his eyes wearied with the unvarying vista on
every hand, the straight stems of the mopani forest, enclosing him; a
still and ghastly wilderness devoid of bird or animal life. He stumbled
forward, his lips blue and cracked, his tongue swollen, his throat on
fire; and in his mind was blank and utter despair, for he knew that he
was in the heart of a waterless tract, extending for about a hundred
miles, and for over forty hours no drop of moisture of any sort had
passed his lips. Forty hours of wandering in the driest, most
thirst-inspiring region in the world!
He had made a bad start. There had been festivities at Fort Pagadi the
night before, to celebrate the Jameson Raid and drink the health of its
leaders. In these he had participated to the full--very much to the
full. He had started at daybreak with a native guide, a headache, and a
thirst which a brace of long and early brandies-and-sodas had failed
entirely to quench. He had started, too, with another concomitant
incidental to these latter--a very bad temper, to wit; wherefore, the
native guide proving irritatingly dull of comprehension, he leaned from
the saddle and cuffed him; which proceeding that aboriginal resented by
decamping on the first opportunity.
Then he should have gone back, but he did not. He took short cuts
instead. This was the more idiotic as he was rather new to the country,
to this actual section of it entirely so. In short, it is hardly
surprising that in the logical result he should have found himself
lost--irretrievably `turned round'; and now, after two days and a night
of wandering to and fro, and round and round, in futile, frantic efforts
to extricate himself from that fatal net, here he was hardly able to
drag himself or his horse four hundred yards farther, the nearest water
being anything between thirty and fifty miles away.
The scant shade of the mopani foliage afforded little protection from
the sun, and even if it had, the oven-like atmosphere engendered by the
burnt, cracked soil would have neutralised such. He had tried climbing
trees in order to try and get some sort of bearings. As well might a
swimmer in mid-ocean rise to the crest of a wave, hoping to descry a
landmark. The smooth, regular expanse of bluish-grey leafage stretched
away unbroken, in whatever direction he might turn his eager despairing
gaze; and he had got stung by ants, and had wasted a deal of much needed
vitality in the effort. That was all, and now he had not even the
strength to climb half a tree if his life had depended upon it. Even an
unlooked-for stumble on the part of the horse he was leading dragged him
flat on his back, jerking at the same time the bridle from his hand.
"Come here, you infernal loathly brute!" he snarled, making an effort to
recover the rein. But for some reason, instinct perhaps, the horse
backed away, just keeping beyond reach.
He glared at the animal with hatred, not altogether unreasonable. For
when he had been travelling about four hours, and was uneasily beginning
to realise that he was lost, he had unslung his vulcanite water-bottle--
which nobody travelling up-country should ever be without--and had
placed it on the ground while off-saddling. But something had startled
the stupid brute, which in its blundering, foolish plunges had put its
foot clean through that indispensable receptacle, of course shattering
it like an eggshell, and spilling every drop of the contents on the
thirsty, sucking soil. He had intended, when the worst came to the
worst, to kill the animal, and assuage his torturing thirst with the
draught of its blood; and the worst _had_ come to the worst.
Some instinct must have lurked within that stupid brain, for now neither
cursing nor coaxing, tried alternately, would induce the horse to come
within reach. Exhausted as it was, it would still slue round, jerking
the bridle away with every attempt to seize it. Once, in desperation,
he seized a stirrup leather, hoping to gain the saddle that way, and
recover the bridle-rein, only to result in a nasty fall against a mopani
stem.
Hideous and thick were the curses which oozed from the swollen lips of
the despairing man, as he saw even this last chance of life--loathsome,
revolting as it was--reft from him. He had no firearms; his six-shooter
he had left for repairs at Fort Pagadi, and not being able to find the
smith at the early hour of his start, with characteristic impatience he
had come on without it: otherwise the difficulty would have been settled
then and there. But as he resumed his stumbling way, the horse,
apparently appreciating human companionship in that wild solitude,
continued to follow him, though persistently defying all effort to
secure it.
He glanced upward. The sun was throwing long rays now along the
tree-tops. Another night would soon be here, bringing with it, however,
no abatement of heat and thirst and torment--Ah! h!
The deep-drawn, raucous sigh that escaped the man can hardly be
conveyed. In front the trees were thinning. There was light beyond.
The road, of course! He had reached the road again, which he should
never have left. There it would be hard but that some traveller or
transport rider should find him, even if he had not the strength to drag
himself on to the nearest human habitation.
With renewed strength, which he thought had left him for ever, he
hurried forward. The line of light grew lighter. The trees ended. No
road was this, but a stony dry _sluit_. It would run a torrent after a
thunderstorm, but this was not the time of thunderstorms, wherefore now
it was as dry as the hard rock that constituted its bed. The wretched
wanderer uttered an exclamation that was half groan, half curse, but was
expressive of the very acme of human despair.
He turned again to try and coax his horse within catching distance. But
this time the animal threw up its head, snorted, and, with an energy he
had not thought it still to possess, turned and trotted off into the
depths of the mopani, its head in the air, and the bridle-rein swinging
clear of the ground. With another awful curse the man fell forward on
the baking earth, and lay, half in, half out of the line of trees which
ended at the _sluit_.
He lay motionless. The sun was off the opening, fortunately for him, or
its terrible focussed rays, falling on the back of his neck, would have
ended his allotted time then and there. But--what was this? On the
line of his track, moving towards him, shadows were stealing--two of
them.
Shadows? They were like such, as they flitted from tree to tree--two
evil-looking Makalaka--with their glistening bodies naked save for a
skin _mutya_ and a collar of wooden beads, with their smooth, shaven
heads and broad noses and glistening eyeballs. And now each gripped
more tightly an assegai and a native axe, as nearer and nearer, like
gliding demons, they stole noiselessly upon the prostrate and exhausted
white man.
The latter had not been so completely alone as he had supposed. Yard
upon yard, mile upon mile, his footsteps had been dogged by these
human--or hardly human--sleuth-hounds. Their ghoul-like exultation when
they had discovered another lost white man, within what was to them as
its web is to a spider, had known no bounds. _Another_! Yes. For more
than one traveller had disappeared already within that trackless
thirst-belt, never to be heard of again either in life or death.
To these, and such as these, this unfathomable tract of thirst-land was
nothing. To the whisky-and-soda drinking Englishman, with his
artificial wants, and general lack of resource and utter deficiency in
the bump of locality, it was, as in the case of the one lying here, a
tomb. To the lithe, serpentine savage, whose draught of water, and mess
of coarse _impupu_, or mealie porridge--when he could get it--it was a
joke. These two had learned this, and had turned it to account, even as
they were about to turn it to account again. They had been on the spoor
of the wanderer from the very first, with hardly more to eat or drink
than he. But then, they had not started after spending a night toasting
the Jameson Raid.
Now they looked at each other, and there was a complete inventory in
each devilish glance. Summed up, it read: A suit of clothes; item a
shirt, boots; item a revolver and a knife--which he was too exhausted
and which they would not give him time to use; item a watch and chain--
tradeable at some distant time and place; certainly some money--
available immediately. The horse, too. They need not trouble about it
now. They would find it easily enough afterwards, and then what a
feast! Of a truth their Snake was favourable to them again!
There lay the victim--there lay the prey. Gliding like evil wood-demons
from the edge of the trees they were over him now. One more glance
exchanged. Each had got his role. The doomed man lay still, with eyes
closed, and a churn of froth at the corners of the swollen lips. One
slowly raised his axe to bring it down on the skull. The other gripped
aloft his assegai. Both could not miss, and it was as well to provide
against contingencies--when--
The fiend with the axe leapt high in the air, falling backward, then
leaping half up again and performing a series of wondrous gyrations,--
this simultaneously with a sharp crack from the cover opposite, on the
farther side of the _sluit_,--shot fair and square and neatly through
the head. The fiend with the assegai knew better than to waste time
unprofitably by completing his stroke. He whirled round as on a pivot,
darting within the friendly trees with the rapidity of a startled snake.
But futilely. For one infinitesimal fraction of a second, Time decreed
that that gliding, dark body should be in line with a certain slit-like
vista in the mopani stems, and--Crack!--again. The second miscreant
dropped, like a walking-stick you let fall on the pavement, and lay face
downwards, arms outspread, motionless as his intended victim.
Then there was silence again in the mopani forest, where lay three
motionless human bodies; dead silence, for--hours, it seemed. No; it
was only minutes.
From among the trees lining the opposite side of the dry _sluit_, out of
the burnt-up grass there now arose the figure of a man--a white man. He
carried a .303 magazine rifle in his left hand, and a revolver of
business-like size was slung round him in a holster. He was rather tall
than not, and loose hung; but from the moment he put down his foot to
step forth from his cover, you could discern a sinewy elasticity of
frame which it would take any two men's share of fatigue to overcome.
His face was peculiar. Grey-bearded and high-nosed, it conveyed the
impression of chronic whimsicality, especially just now, puckered with
the chuckle which was convulsing its owner. But there was a steely
clearness in the blue eyes, glancing straight from under the broad
hat-brim, that you would rather not face looking at you from behind the
sights of a rifle.
This curiously effective specimen of a guardian angel lounged across to
the fellow-countryman whose life he had saved, and gazed down at the
latter.
"Near go!" he ruminated. "Near a one as this Johnny Raw 'll ever have
again. Why? 'Cause it couldn't be nearer. Good-looking feller whoever
he is, but--he needn't know too much. Heave up--ho!" And laying hold
of the heels of the savage he had first shot, he proceeded to haul the
corpse of that assassin, to the accompaniment of very nautical-sounding
cries, to a sufficient distance as to be invisible to the intended
victim when the latter should wake to consciousness.
"No; he needn't know too much," he repeated, returning to the sufferer.
"Now then, mister, wake up and have a pull at this."
"This" being a substantial water-bottle. Presumably there was something
magnetic in its inviting gurgle--for the hitherto unconscious man opened
his eyes, stared, then half leaping up made a wild snatch at the bottle.
"_Gahle_--_gahle_!" said the other, "and that means `no hurry.' A
little at a time is what'll meet your case. Here you are;" and he
filled him out a small measure. But so tremulous were the sufferer's
hands with eagerness and weakness combined that he spilled half its
contents.
"That won't do, sonny. This stuffs too valuable till we get clear of
the mopani belt. Here--give it to me." And he held it to the other's
lips.
"More--more."
"No; that's enough to go on with. Well--a little more, then. Now, pull
yourself together and come along with me. What? Starving? Oh ay.
Well, chew at this chunk o' biscuit. It ain't soft tack but it's better
than nothing, and I'm too old a sailor--prospector, I mean--to be
navigating these seas without a shot in the locker."
The other munched fiercely at the brown, uninviting bit of biscuit. His
succourer looked approvingly on.
"That's right," he said. "Now we'll serve out some more water. Then
I'll put you on my horse--he's anchored t'other side of the _sluit_--and
we'll shape a course for my donkey-carts. They're out-spanned on the
road."
"The road? Are we near the road?" stammered the other.
"Mile or so. But keep your tongue down, sonny, until we get there. You
don't want to talk a lot till you've had some proper skoff."